Among organic and inorganic materials, there exist materials in which structures of atoms are arranged identically but as mirror images of each other according to a chiral center. These are known as enantiomers. For example, for the amino acids constituting the body, two mirror images can exist with the carbon atom as the chiral center, to which carboxyl and amine groups are attached, and these are respectively called the L- and D-forms.
On the other hand, when the non-chiral compound NaClO4 is stirred, it may crystallize while spontaneously forming a structure of a pure L- or D-form. Additionally, all amino acids existing in organisms are composed of the L-form, and further, when D-amino acids enter the body, it is known that the amino acids may be inactive or cause side effects even if the atomic structure thereof corresponds to that of the L-form. In contrast, all saccharides in the body are known to have the D-form, and therefore, preparing an organic material and/or inorganic material of a single enantiomer is of the utmost importance in producing highly efficient medicines with reduced side effects in the pharmaceutical field. Generally, when synthesizing an organic material and/or inorganic material, both enantiomers are made almost identically, and a mixture with the same amount of each enantiomer is called as a racemic mixture (hereinafter, racemate). The reaction in which a prepared material in a racemic state is converted into one enantiomer is called deracemization.
A conventional deracemization process uses a method of slowly increasing the enantiomeric excess (ee) of one side by increasing and decreasing the temperature of a well-mixed batch reactor (Science 1990, 16, 975; Phys. Rev. Lett. 2005, 94, 065504; Crys. Growth. Deg. 2007, 7, 553; Crys. Growth. Deg. 2009, 9, 4802; Crys. Growth. Deg. 2013, 13, 3498). At this time, when the initial percentage of each enantiomer is formed, one enantiomer is produced slightly more than the other, such that the ratio therebetween is slowly converted from 51:49 to 99:1, and this is called the deracemization phenomenon. However, in this case, there is a disadvantage in that the reaction time requires at least 150 hours.